HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY OF TREES. PART I. 



them were frequently paid by vassals to their lords, both in 

 France and England. The single rose paid as an acknowledg- 

 ment was the diminutive representation of a bushel of roses ; as 

 a single peppercorn, which is still a reserved rent, is of a pound 

 of peppercorns, a payment originally of some worth, descending 

 by degrees to a mere formality. [Histoire de la Vie -privSe des 

 Francois, ii. 221., and CidlurrHs Hawsted^ 117, 118.) 



The well-known story of the quarrel in the Temple Gardens, 

 about 1450, which gave rise to the distinctions of the white and 

 red rose in the wars of York and Lancaster, is in unison with 

 the foregoing authorities. 



Towards the end of this century, parks for hunting became 

 common in England, and bushes in gardens were clipped ; but 

 we have no evidence that in either; case foreign trees or shrubs 

 were made use of ; unless, with Daines Barrington, we reckon 

 the yew tree as such. The yew is mentioned in these times as 

 subjected to the topiary operations of the gardener ; and there 

 appears little doubt that it was then reckoned one of the princi- 

 pal garden shrubs, and almost the only evergreen one. The 

 trees of the parks were, in all probability, wholly indigenous, 

 and were left to propagate themselves, by shedding their seeds 

 among rough herbage ; and the extent of surface they covered 

 was allowed to be curtailed by deer and other animals, or to ex- 

 tend itself, according to; the abundance or scarcity of pasture. 



Of the foreign trees and shrubs of Scotland and Ireland, at 

 this remote period, scarcely any thing is known. James I. is 

 said to have been an amateur of the fine arts, and to have been 

 fond of gardens, and of grafting fruit trees. James III. had 

 gardens in the neighbourhood of Stirling Castle ; and the pear 

 trees and chestnuts, which are known to have existed in Scotland 

 at that period, may have been introduced from France, with 

 which country Scotland was then, and for many years after- 

 .wards, on intimate terms, or by the Roman clergy. JDr. Walker 

 .mentions a sweet chestnut at Finhaven in Forfarshire, which, in 

 1760, was conjectured to be upwards of 500 years old, and 

 which is supposed to have been the oldest planted tree in Scot- 

 land. {Essays, p. 29.) 



Still less is known of the introduction of foreign trees and 

 shrubs into Ireland. The arbutus is thought by some to be 

 indigenous; and it is certain that in England, in the 15th cen- 

 tury, it was called the Irish arbutus. By others, however, 

 it is said to have been introduced into Killarney by the monks 

 of St. Finnian, who founded the abbey of that name on the 

 banks of the lake, in the 6th century. 



